Fried Poem by EJ Dirge

Girls are made of sugar and spice
But do you know what's not so nice
Do you know how it feels to be maudlin paper doll
Streaked with your own tears
Necessary to ensure everyone that you will apologize over and over again
For having lips
A tongue
And a voice

And wouldn't it be better if you ripped it out
And then you could exist physically and not auditorily
Because there is no one in the world who asked to hear you speak
And yet you press your voice into the world

Lower your voice
But don't let it crackle like bacon in a pan
Speak quietly
But speak up because we can't hear you
And don't stand up for yourself
But you can't complain that we overlooked you because you were sitting down

You aren't enough
All I can see is the holes that you should be filling
And though I should never see you
And never hear you
And you should be so remarkably irrelevant that the presence of you frightens me and sets my heart pounding when I notice you
When I do see you, you'd better be everything i thought you were
And your voice must hit the bullseye of the ideals I had
You must be exactly as I want you to be
You may not authentically live the way you want
Because didn't you know, girl?
That's not the purpose your life serves

You are a victim, and your perpetrator doesn't exist
You are oppressed by a system that no one is responsible for
You exist to serve
You exist to adorn and to decorate
And millions of women before lived like this
And they embraced it
They never fought back in way that were documented
No, they fought back with screaming into pillows
And drinking when no one saw them
And killing their husbands quietly

Have you ever considered for one moment that the vocal fry
The cracking quality of my voice is not weakness
Is not breaking
But it's a primordial growl
And perhaps it is not me bowing down to you in subservience
But perhaps it is something I created because I know that you cannot fathom
An intelligent thought voiced powerfully
So I weaken it
Not out of deference
Because I know there is no other way I will break through your thick ears
Full to the brim of bitter patriarchal wax
And I am working you
Did you know that?
Did you know that the snap crackle pop of my voice is a choice
And a tactic
As hidden as a land mine
I know you'll step on it every time
Do you know that my skill to artfully change who I am depending on who is the room
Is a code switching you'll never break
Ten times more complex than the enigma
And you will never understand what it's like to have to take the temperature of every room
To wave a thermometer around in the air
To lick your finger and hold it up and see if any breeze cools it
It's not so easy, you know
It's not easy to spend every moment of your life awake
And altering and changing and weighing what to say and what not to say
And how to say it
How to say it in a way that seems just stupid enough for you to not be afraid of
And men fear an intelligent woman so much that he'd rather kill her than recognize the power of her voice
He'd rather cut her tongue out
And throw it into the ocean

Very well

If you won't listen to my voice then I will use everything that I have
I will use my legs
And my face
And my lungs
And my body language
And I won't blabber
But I will show you who I am
Through whatever means it takes
You think that you can make me silent
You think that I'm a pearl inside a clam that you can close
You think that you can fling me somewhere that I will never be found
And you think that I won't skip like a flat rock and land on solid ground again

You will never silence me
Because I am not only me
But I am thousands and millions and billions of women
Who have never served in silence
Who have never truly subjugated
Who have quietly always been in the background being smarter, better, stronger, and braver
Sharpening themselves
Iron against iron
Until the blade pricks through rock flesh